


Allsaints

by FrangipaniFlower



Series: Time and Tide [2]
Category: Homeland
Genre: Advent Calendar 2017, Alternative Hug, F/M, Falling In Love, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:12:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrangipaniFlower/pseuds/FrangipaniFlower
Summary: Another day during those first few week of living under one roof.Carrie told Quinn about the stroke and what happened afterwards and he left.And on Allsaints he‘s back.The story is set between Allhallowtide and Winter Solstice.Posted as advent calendar fic on Dec 2.





	Allsaints

It’s a few days later. Not too many. Of course in reality, it’s weeks that probably passed but time is a difficult concept for him ever since _that day_.

He knows _Berlin_ was back in May. And then he knows nothing til July. He‘s been _away_ for seven weeks. It makes him think about what defines being _alive_. Certainly not the physical processes of metabolism, heartbeat and breathing. Brain activity? Recognizing a face when opening the eyes? Knowing the one person who matters? 

Does he believe in having a soul? He cannot remember if he ever did, but right now he doesn’t know. 

But he‘s still here, and for whatever reason fate decided to bring him into Carrie‘s house and sphere. 

He often thinks about that too. Why he’s still here. Why he doesn’t run away. 

And the answer hasn’t changed: He can’t. 30 months of Syria haven’t been enough to stop _this_.

He tried. Just a few days ago. Carrie told him about his stroke and waking him up. She cried. He didn’t feel anything. Just that he couldn’t stay and listen to her repeating the same words over and over again. 

So he left and came back a few days later. He slept at Mona‘s place. Just sleeping, nothing else.

And now he’s back, sitting in the basement, unsure of what’s next. Whether he should announce he‘s back or just wait for her to notice. 

He‘s not angry. And that’s not why he left. It was just too much. 

He hears her coming home. Franny‘s feet running and jumping. 

After a while, the connecting door opens and Franny peaks around the corner, the lights behind her casting a halo-like shine around her curls.

„Quinn,“ she whispers and rushes down the stairs, „where were you? We missed you.“

She’s standing in front of him now and her stare is so similar to Carrie‘s, that he almost has to chuckle.

„S-some b-business.“

„Selling matches?“

„Huh?“

„That’s a story _I_ know. Do you want to hear it?“

„S-sure.“

„Okay then. Come upstairs. Snacktime and then story.“

And so he follows her, slowly walks into Carrie’s kitchen, seeing her back stiffening when he mutters her name.

She takes a third mug from the cupboard and gives him a quizzical glance and nothing else.

He wonders if he finally destroyed what they - were? Might have been?

They drink coffee, and then Carrie starts preparing dinner and Franny asks him to play a boardgame with her and to help her with her jigsaw puzzle. It’s a large one with a map and animals from all over the world.

He tells her that he once saw a snake, and that a scorpio slept in his shoe, and she wrinkles her little nose and explains that she is glad that he didn’t get bitten.

When they are done it’s dark outside and Carrie calls that dinner is ready.

“I think you can stay,” Franny whispers with a smile, but then runs down the hallway and comes back a few moments later, while Quinn is still sorting his limbs, feeling even more stiff after sitting on the floor for nearly an hour.

“There are three plates,” Franny reports and drags him to the dining table.

It’s a quick pasta dish - spaghetti, cut baby tomatoes and cubes of mozzarella cheese, some basil leaves adding green spots - but it tastes so much better than anything Quinn recently ate.

He manages dinner without spilling food on his shirtfront, and he is finishing his second plate when Carrie asks him if he could spend the next afternoon with Franny, as she’ll need to work later than usual.

He looks at her face, and sees her eyes seeking his, and there is a hint of an insecure smile curling at the corners of her mouth.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Carrie collects the plates and feels her knees getting weak, and she has to center herself for a long moment before she can go back to the dining area where Franny is busy sharing raspberry yoghurt between three bowls.

_Thank God, he is back._

After finishing her dessert Franny insists that she wants to tell a story tonight, and of course Quinn doesn’t object.

So it’s Franny’s voice filling the living room with a bedtime story tonight, and the second Carrie realizes what’s Franny’s choice she needs to take a deep breath.

 

“It was terribly cold and nearly dark and there was snow. A little girl walked through the streets. She had no shoes and no jacket. She carried a number of matches in her pockets, and had some in her hands. No one had bought anything from her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. 

She was tired and sat down in the snow.  
She could not go home, she had sold no matches. Her hands were frozen . So she took one match out - _scratch!_ ,” Franny made the sound and the gesture and Carrie sat on the couch, next to her daughter. 

 

“It gave a bright light, like a candle, as she held her hand over it. It seemed so beautifully warm that the she stretched out her feet to warm them, but when the flame of the match went out, she was in the cold again. She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall, she could see into the room. The table was covered with food. But when the match went out, it was cold again.

 

She lit another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas tree. She stretched out her hand towards it, and the match went out.  
But this time, she could still see it.”

 

“The Christmas lights rose higher and higher,” Carrie took over, speaking with a soft voice, “till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. ‘Someone is dying,’ thought the little girl. For her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.

 

She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone around her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. ‘Grandmother,’ cried the little one, ‘O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas tree.’ And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.

 

In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New Year’s sun rose and shone upon the little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. ‘She tried to warm herself,’ said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year’s day.”

Silence fills the room, Franny comfortably snuggled between the two adults, tired now. It’s Carrie who finally speaks first.

“Who told you that story, Franny?”

“Gretchen. Her mother is from Denmark. She read it for morning story today.”

“It’s a b-beautiful s-s-story, Franny,” Quinn’s happy to see how his words make her smile.

“It’s sad,” Franny adds, suddenly feeling sad herself.

“It- it is. B-but f-for that l-little girl, it’s a g-good ending. She’s w-with her G-grandma.”

“And she is not cold anymore.”

“T-true.”

“Elin, Gretchen’s mom, said that wouldn’t happen anymore. That it was a long time ago.”

“Y-yes. I think m-maybe two hundred years. But you know w-what I like?”  
“What?”

“That the little girl c-can imagine all these things.”

Franny frowns, thinking about Quinn’s words and this is Carrie’s chance to interrupt.

“Bedtime, little bug. C’mon, I’ll tuck you in.”

“Night, Quinn.”

——————

He’s by the door when she comes back, about to go downstairs.  
But he stops when he hears her latching Franny’s door and looks at her.  
Suddenly Carrie feels very tired. How could she ever believe that she could make this work? After Berlin?

But she knows she has to try. Over and over again.

“Quinn,” - that’s all she has.

“Good night, Carrie.”

And then he leaves.

——————————-

It’s pitch-dark when she wakes up and jolts out of her bed. 

It’s Quinn. Screaming. She’s never heard such a sound before. And hopes she’ll never have to hear it again.

It takes her only a few steps, she slips on the stairs, and yet time draws out, each step too slow, and he screams and she’s not there.

But then she’s with him, finds him in the dark, her arms around him now, she’s not sure if he’s still caught in his nightmare or if he’s awake. But she holds him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, his face buried against her neck, she feels his heartbeat against her chest, and it’s too fast, too irregular, he’s sweating and he is not breathing.

“Quinn. Quinn. Breathe. Breathe.”

She feels when he snaps out of it and gasps for air, his hand clenching into her side, so hard that it hurts.

There are no words to fight that kind of horror. And yet she’s glad. That for once she can be there for him when he needs - _someone? Or me?_

He’s drinking in her scent, feeling her warmth seeping into his taught body.

_Neither cold nor hunger nor pain._

_And that is true._

Quinn tries to focus. Shreds of reality. Images from the past. Not enough air. But Carrie. Her arms around him. Her scent. Her touch. 

_This is real._

Carrie feels his breathing finally calming down, his hands slowly unclenching and then roaming upwards, splayed out on her back now, resting there for a moment.

He exhales slowly, she can feel his breath against her cheek.

She’s not ready to let go of him yet, still holds him tightly, and as much as seeing him like this, in complete and utter horror, makes her heart ache, she yet enjoys that first moment of proximity in days. That she can give this to him. Help him to come back from these horrifying events, at least in when he lives through them in his nightmare.

His touch is so elusive that she misses the moment when his hand slips under her shirt. 

Just when he’s skimming over her back, caressing her skin, she notices that his breathing changes and that he is holding her closer now.

This isn’t an embrace of comfort any more. And yet it is. Because how could she condemn his need for a _connection_ now? How could she deny him what he’s silently asking for? How could she not be grateful that it’s still her he wants, both now in this very moment and in his life? How could she not be relieved that he came back to her, even with the knowledge of what happened in Berlin?

Their lips meet when Carrie slightly turns her head and kisses the corner of his mouth, crushed by the intensity of her longing for the complicated man in her arms.

Her hands come up to frame his face, one hand goes into his hair when she pulls him even closer and parts her lips for him, their kiss urgent and messy now.

His hand finds the side her breast, his touch is almost too tender, but then he closes his hand around her breast and starts kneading it, sending a jolt of pleasure through Carrie’s core.

She doesn’t think if it’s the right thing, she only wants to _be_ with him and give him what he needs to not lose himself in the dark and devastating landscape of his memories. 

Undressing is an urgent affair, his pants lowered down to his knees, her pants gone, he shoves her shirt upwards, wants it gone, she pulls it over her head, already straddling him, needs to feel more skin, takes off his shirt and for once he lets her, he can’t turn away but faces her in the dark and pulls her in for a kiss when it’s gone, feeling her nipples pressed against his chest, and pushes her down to take him inside her, almost too forcefully.

His arm firmly locked around her waist he holds her how he wants her, pressed into his lap, his mouth devouring the soft skin of her neck while he is thrusting into her with fast and hard strokes.

Surrendering to his need to have her and to feel her, Carrie feels her own ascent, taking over every conscious thought, and when her climax rings through her body she knows that this will take him with her. 

Quinn stills and pants hard against her clavicle, she knows he’s there now too but when she tries to move away, the sheen of sweat on her skin making her feel cold, he locks his hand at the back of her nape, and bends her back slightly backwards so his mouth can reach her breast.

He‘s still inside her, and when his mouth closes around her nipple Carrie almost screams. He huffs a laugh when she starts rocking her hips in response, her frantic movements telling him she’s feeling what he wants her to feel.

He keeps stimulating her with his lips and tongue, and only stops when she pants his name, craving for release.

His mouth on hers now, he lets go of her, but only to slip that hand to her center and to bring her off once more with short and fast movements.

Afterwards he holds her pressed against his chest, her legs wrapped around his hips now, her face buried in the curve of his neck.

When he finally lifts her up a little and slips out of her, he lowers her back into his lap.

Carrie’s hand come up to frame his face as she kisses him, a tender and soft kiss, feeling a sense of loss and sadness.

„Don’t give up Quinn,“ she whispers, „not now.“

——————

Quinn falls asleep in the grey hours of the wintery morning. He hears Carrie‘s and Franny‘s voices when they leave the house and Franny‘s chatter guides him into a few hours of rest, still feeling Carrie‘s lingering kiss before she got up and left to wake up her daughter.

There’s snow in his dream, so much snow, but it’s not cold. And there is a woman and a child. He can’t make their faces but he knows it’s them. It’s a strangely peaceful image and he hears the child laughing.  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to SNQA!


End file.
